


Breaking the Cycle

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheriff Graham had a routine until a felon came to town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Cycle

Graham wasn't the kind of liked the woods. He liked routine. He liked his coffee to be waiting when he got to Granny's. He liked a donut. He like to pretend he wasn't napping in the squad car on a quiet day. He sometimes joked that he was such a walking cliche that if he wasn't Sheriff, he'd have to arrest himself.

No one laughed.

It wasn't a very good joke, really, now that he thought about it.

Routine was fine.

Routine was a good thing.

He had his 'meetings' with the Mayor on Saturdays. He worked. He did everything he usually did.

It wasn't until Henry Mills went on his field trip, and appeared back in town with a prehistoric car and a felon that he realised just how much he didn't like any of those things. He'd never really thought about it before. They were all he did, because they were all he did. He drove the same streets, walked the same patrols, and for the first time in recent memory, he wondered if maybe there was something more interesting.

Instead of just looking at his routes and his files and his four office walls, he drove out into the forest and lay on his back on the hood of the car and looked at the stars. A sky without electric lights felt right. The moon was clear and it was bright, and the scent of the woodsap and the river brought back barely tangible whispers of memories.

Still, he had his routine, well-worn and familiar, like comfortable shoes, so he walked the walk, did the patrol, filled in the paperwork, rolled Leroy into his usual cell for being drunk. 

And yet...

He slept with the windows open.

He let the air in. 

He shed his clothing and stood naked in the moonlight.

He felt... alive for the first time since he could remember, and that was ridiculous. He was much too young to be having a midlife crisis, but donuts and coffee and even sex with a beautiful woman was becoming lacklustre. More and more, he wanted to run through the trees, feel the air on his skin, the dirt beneath his feet, and just be... something that wasn't a staid, dull, settled man not even in his forties. 

A break.

Freedom.

Something that felt right.

It was the felon, the woman, the blonde.

Emma Swan.

She was feisty. She was stubborn. She was determined. She didn't laugh at his jokes, but she rolled her eyes, and for a moment, that felt as good as a laugh. And when she was there, when she was standing right in front of him, he felt like he could climb the highest mountain, wrestle a wolf into submission, do anything, anything that wasn't policing one of the most crime-free towns on the Eastern seaboard.

It didn't hurt that she made him smile.

He couldn't remember how long it was since he'd really done that.

He liked her. He liked her a lot. And yet, when Saturday came, when the Mayor called, he had to go. He had to, but now the face he looked at when he kissed her wasn't hers. He imagined Swan's eyes, but they were brighter, laughing, and he imagined her fair hair tangled on the pillows, and he imagined kissing her and loving her, and he knew he was in a hell of a lot of trouble.

Trouble only got worse when she found out.

She found out and she saw and the hurt in her face told him she felt the same.

He fled, back to the reassuring monotony of routine, to Regina, to the Mayor, kissing her like it was the same, using her as she so often used him, but it wasn't the same. It could never be the same. Nothing he did with her felt right or good. It was just... sex. It wasn't love-making. It wasn't fun. It was just sex and he didn't care anymore. He didn't want it anymore.

Graham was tired of being stuck with boring and routine. He'd done as he was told for too long. He'd obeyed too wordlessly. He'd become stuck, trapped, in a rut, and now, he wanted to climb out, and at the top, Emma would be waiting.

That night, the thoughts whirling in his head, despite Regina being at his side, he dreamed. He dreamed of a different world, a different place, and when he woke, he knew what he had to do.


End file.
